The unranked NIU Huskies played at #1 Ohio State today as if a Power Five Conference expansion committee was watching. Maybe the Big 12 might be making a couple phone calls someday down the line.
Today’s effort was night and day different from last year’s Power 5 road trip disaster. Instead of getting utterly annihilated by a mediocre Arkansas team, Northern Illinois went into Columbus and had Ohio State Buckeyes fans gnawing on their finger nails with three minutes to go.
NIU was down just one possession, with the ball, inside four minutes to go. It may sound very trite to say this, but it’s a moral victory. In situations like this, plucky mid-major versus high-major super-power oligarchs, moral victories do exist.
Especially when you consider that the NIU Huskies were five touchdown (yes, that’s 35 point) underdogs. What’s even more amazing is that Northern Illinois hung with the Buckeyes for so despite such an awful game from their normally stellar and efficient quarterback Drew Hare. His box score read 14-31 passing, 80 yards, two INTs, 0 TDs. That equals a horrendous 2.6 yards per attempt, for an ungodly 7.3 QBR. Yikes!
So credit the NIU Huskies defenders for holding Ohio State to just 136 yards passing. Ridiculously over-publicized quarterbacks Cardale Jones and J.T. Barrett (add in recently converted WR Braxton Miller) completed 16 of their 29 pass attempts. Ohio State converted on just two of its 13 third down conversion tries. NIU held the ball for 32:26 compared to OSU’s 27:34.
“We got it to a one-score game [in the fourth quarter], which was good,” Northern Illinois Coach Rod Carey said.
“At the end, we missed too many opportunities. We’re upset about losing the game. We had an opportunity to win. I’m proud of the defense, the offense and all three phases of the game. They gave us the opportunity to win.”
“The whole defense played really well. Shawun is always around the ball and he made the plays. That’s what we expect. We were on the right side of the turnover battle.”
Despite the end result not being what Carey and company wanted, it’s a big step forward for the NIU Huskies program today. The last #1 ranked team had this small of a victory margin at home versus an unranked team was 20 years ago.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is part of the FOX Sports Engage Network. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous talk radio stations all across the country. Catch his Tuesdays on KOZN 1620 The Zone.
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